Bitch Witch (2 page)

“No wonder,” she moaned, tasting blood on her lips. She would have known better than to cast if she had taken two seconds to think before reacting.
A full moon, a blue moon, PMS, a witch who hasn’t cast in—what—seven months?

Talk about falling off the wagon.

“Ma’am?” said a voice that made her think of cowboys and rodeos, and people interviewed on the news talking about how a tornado sounded like a train.

“Ma’am?” the accented voice repeated.

Ma’am? Oh, screw you!
She didn’t look that old! Okay, technically she was wearing flannel pajama bottoms—but they could pass for yoga pants!
Kinda, sorta.
No, she hadn’t showered or brushed her hair today but
ma’am
? Who in all of New England said
ma’am
? Although the truck driven by the blonde jackhole had already proven there were rednecks even outside of Boston.

“Ma’am, can you hear me?” A man knelt beside her. “Are you all right?”

Sarah focused on him and the shouts and noise around her seemed to go silent.
Don’t, don’t, don’t! You’re in enough trouble!

She wasn’t listening. An actual real-life cowboy leaned over her, complete with faded jeans, a pristine white t-shirt, and a black cowboy hat. A fair amount of tattoos covered muscled arms, and because the universe found her situation so funny, her rescuer wore a necklace with a religious icon.

Ah, I can’t just slide to the dark side and be done with it, can I?

Every other moment just has to be a painful learning experience, doesn’t it?

Sarah reached up and took the pendant between her thumb and two fingers. It scorched like she’d grasped the wrong end of a stick roasting marshmallows.
Penance.
She held on as long as she could bear it, mere seconds, and let go with a shout that returned the sounds of people and car alarms to her ears.

“Ma’am, hold still. I’m going to call an ambulance,” Cowboy said, yanking a cell phone out of his back pocket and running a thumb across the screen.

“No.” Sarah shoved to a sitting position, the bag with pizzas still attached to her wrist. The other must have been thrown against the car too. Playtex Gentle Glide Super Plus tampons littered her lap, and the pills from bottles of St. John’s Wort and Evening Primrose Oil spilled over the blacktop, peppered with Hershey Kisses and Dove Dark. Some practical part of Sarah’s brain noted that the chocolates were foil wrapped and therefore still good.

“You best not move. I’m an EMT and I think you might have a head injury.” Cowboy leaned closer as though to study her eyes, giving her a close-up view of the face shaded by his hat. Brown eyes with thick lashes, sharp nose, sculpted lips, stubble—pretty much man perfection.
Please be gay, or married, or really turned off by menstruating single witches who’ve never had good sex.

“I’m fine.” Sarah yanked the pizza bag off her wrist and wiped her hand across her mouth. She studied the blood on the back of her hand and tentatively touched her lip with her tongue. She’d bitten it, but not too badly. “I just fell,” she lied, and added for atonement, “Believe me, there’s nothing wrong with my head that doesn’t run in my family.”

“Can you tell me what eight times seven is?”

Sarah blinked, counting in her head.
Crickey, really? Do all EMTs give pop quizzes? Eight times five is forty, plus two more eights.
“Fifty-six?”

He didn’t look convinced.

“Seriously, I’m okay. I have a math deficit that has nothing to do with this. I was an English major. Couldn’t you give me a random Longfellow fill-in-the-blank? Or maybe Thoreau?”

Those lips rubbed together, and for a moment
those lips
completely distracted Sarah. Leaning his body weight onto one knee, Cowboy said, “
‘And seeming to whisper all is well…’
”

It took Sarah a moment to place the obscure line from
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
and settle her brain on the next line in the poem. But she had gone to school in Massachusetts, so the entire poem about the patriot lived in her brain somewhere. At last she found it, and said with triumph, “
‘A moment only he feels the spell.’
”

No sooner had the words left her lips than the power of them hit, tangling with the residual aftershock of the spell just cast.
Shit!
Magic slipped from her with her next breath and blew over the cowboy as an incantation. He blinked at her as though only now focusing and noticing she wasn’t a fat old lady, but a young one, with eyes the color of his faded Levi’s and hair as dark as a night sky. He swallowed and his Adam’s apple moved with masculine perfection.

Shit! But he spoke it first, I didn’t!
Sarah fought the urge to yank his cross off the chain and stick it into her mouth, swallow it maybe. She hadn’t cast a love spell since one teenage moment of insanity in high school.
Is it only love spells you’ve cut out? You’re not supposed to cast at all!
Surely this cowboy was part of the aftershock of her spell.
The payment is always higher than you imagine! This is what happens when you’re in debt to the dark side! Compound interest was invented in hell.

“Are you two okay?” An older woman gazed down at them, her eyes focused on Sarah. “Oh! You’re bleeding!” She straightened and waved to someone, calling, “Over here!”

“No, I’m fine! I’m fine.” Sarah scrambled to her feet, dodging the cowboy’s hand when he stood quickly to offer it.
Oh, hell no! A touch will seal the deal.
Gaining her feet, Sarah took several steps backward, almost tripping as one of her flip-flops folded in half. If she avoided his touch it would be much easier to break the spell.
Easier? No love spell breaks easily.
She looked around, spotted her keys on the pavement and grabbed them. “I’d better get home, I need to…”
get the hell away from you.
She didn’t bother trying to finish the sentence with a lie. She had enough penance to do.

“I think we need some help over here!” the lady shouted across the parking lot.

Shut up!
“I’m fine!” Sarah grabbed her bags and bent over to stuff the ripped tampon box into one. Cowboy picked up a couple tampons and her credit card. “I can get it. Don’t bother,” she said.

Ignoring her, Cowboy dropped them into her open bag. Sarah yanked her hand away before they could touch, but accepted his help. She was going to need all the chocolate and probably all the damn tampons after this. Bending to gather more chocolates, she kept an eye on him.

Shouts and someone crying drew Sarah’s attention. With her mind on her own problems, she had forgotten the other injuries in the parking lot. Judging by the amount of people standing around in the near darkness, and the flashing lights of an approaching ambulance, Sarah knew she wasn’t the only one knocked over.

Shit! This is going to take some serious penance to fix. Seven months of good behavior down the toilet! Again!

“I suppose we’re going to need to exchange insurance information too.” Cowboy straightened and pulled his wallet from his back pocket.

Sarah recalled the crashing sound as she’d hit the ground, and hurried to look at the front of her Jeep. It rested against the crumpled front end of a BMW Series 6 convertible.
Black, of course. It matches his hat.
It looked like her Jeep had driven across his hood. Even his windows were cracked. Her Jeep didn’t appear to have any damage. Sarah’s shoulders slumped as she turned to the cowboy. “That’s yours?”
Of course it’s his. Perfect man, perfect car. He probably adores his mother and has lunch with his sister every week too.

He frowned, using his wallet to push his hat back further. “Just picked it up today, up in New Hampshire. I swung by here to grab some stuff for the road. Supposed to have that back home by Tuesday morning.” He said Tuesday like
Toos-dee
.

“Texas?”
Of course.

“Oklahoma.”

Close enough.
“I’m sorry,” said Sarah.

He smiled at her with toothpaste ad teeth and was that—Sarah narrowed her eyes at his chin—yep, a dimple in his chin.
Seriously?

“It weren’t your fault.” He took off his hat to run strong fingers through dark hair that the universe surely had created for the sole purpose of that gesture. “I thought that was a bomb when it took out those windows, but it sounded different—meteorite maybe? I could hear the whistle before it hit.”

“Hmmph,” snorted Sarah. Lies had a cost too, not like casting and knocking down innocent people in the parking lot, but enough lies could slowly bind one to the dark side before they ever knew they were going. Sarah figured she was already sitting on hell’s riverbank dangling her feet into the river Styx. She certainly wasn’t going to tie an anchor to them with lies. Shoving her key into the ancient Jeep door, she creaked it open and said, “Do you have your insurance card then?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

If she was going to touch him, it would be to smack him. She wondered if he felt the same urge to touch, to make physical contact. To be safe, Sarah tossed her bags onto the passenger seat, climbed into the driver’s seat and leaned over to open the glovebox. “Massachusetts has no-fault insurance. Do you know what that is?”

“Not really, ma’am.”

Sarah paused in her digging to look out the driver’s door at the cowboy. He leaned against the open door—it was a good thing she’d climbed inside so far—still holding his wallet in hand, fishing for his insurance card while studying her. Sarah wished she’d worn a bra, but at least the frumpy sweatshirt mostly hid that faux pas.

“I think it’s supposed to keep things simple, especially when no one gets hurt,” she explained.

“You were hurt,” said Cowboy in a hushed voice.

Sarah sensed he was going to touch her. She felt him reaching before she lifted her eyes to see the hand, tattooed with what looked like a horse’s nose under the bright parking lot lights. She leaned toward it, because she was the stupidest woman who never wanted to be a witch. But no touch came.

“Here.” His hand hovered inches above both of hers, offering his insurance card. “Do you have a pen? To copy the information down with?”

That was close! And I wanted him to!
She had to get away.

“No. I don’t have a pen. Move.”

“I’m sorry?” he said.

“Quit leaning on my door.”

“Oh!” He immediately moved. “Sorry, ma’am!”

“And stop calling me ma’am!”

He apologized again, and Sarah grabbed the door handle and slammed it shut. Just that much metal and glass separating them hurt her, as if she had been closed off from oxygen inside the car.
Damn! It’s strong!
Sarah fumbled to hit the button to roll the window down, which was inconveniently located beneath the radio. As the window slid open her breathing came easier.

Cowboy waited, patiently holding his insurance card out. “I thought you were going to hit and run on me,” he teased.

Sarah leaned back against the seat and took a deep breath. His essence came with it. He smelled—Sarah considered a moment, inhaling again, trying to place it—
good.
Not good as in attractive, although he had that, too—body wash, deodorant, and just a slight hint of sweat or anxiety. No, he smelled
good.

Honest.

Physical, but has a penchant for history.

Soldier.

Fuck.

“I am going to hit and run on you. I’ve got to go. Here.” Sarah tossed her insurance card out the window. It fluttered to the ground.

He tried to hand over his card, but Sarah put the window up so quickly that his hand bumped against the glass. She looked away from him, glanced into the rearview mirror for show—she could already sense the momentary break in activity behind her Jeep—and shoved the gear into reverse.

“Hey! Wait!” Cowboy hollered as she backed out.

His yell came faintly through the glass, but Sarah didn’t pause, instead stepping on the clutch and moving into first gear. She needed to put as much distance between them as possible, and do penance for casting the damn spell that tore out the driveshaft of that pickup and bloodied half a dozen people. After that she’d figure out how the hell to break a love spell without casting again to do it.